So this summer was pretty busy and passed by in a flash.  School started, and I steadily got busier and busier.  Homework takes up most of my free time.

A few weeks ago, my grand had not been acting like herself for a week, so my aunt brought her to the hospital.  After a catscan it was dertermined that she had several small tumors causing pressure in her brain, and a week and a lung biopsy later, the verdict was that the one lone tumor in the lung was the primary cancer.  The tumors in her brain have shrunk enough thanks to the drugs that my grandmother is back to her usual personality, although her memory and motor functions are affected randomly.  The cancer has been pronounced inoperable, and my grandmother is not eligible for chemotherapy. Thankfully, she is in no pain. She's been in the hospital for four weeks now, and always has a member of the family by her side.

So yeah, please excuse my lack of updates, I'm kinda preoccupied with other stuff at the moment...

  I was on vacation this week for the first time since Christmas break.  Aegeis graciously let me use the guest bedroom in her new appartment for a few days.  We celebrated her new place as well as Canada Day (!) by having a small party.  I even got to sit in on C-san's fabled 'evil' D&D campaign.  The 'dead baby' jokes were really flying that day.  After that I made my way to my parent's place and helped my mom with some of her projects.  I even went down to the local library, only to find that the comic book section (as well as most of the others) had had to be pared down because the new building was too small.  The library was my favorite hang-out in the summertime when I was younger, it was a blow to find that a lot of my favorite books had been sold or thrown out.  The librarian is petitioning the town to expand their current space through the addition of a second floor.  They're situated right besides the fire station, so they don't really want to move the library, just make it bigger.

  My old dog is still alive and kicking, which is nice.  Unfortunately, her vision is degrading a bit now, and she has muscle spasms occasionally, on top of her light arthritis.  Her fur is slowly becoming a paler shade of blond as more an more of it becomes white.  My brother thinks she may not make it through the summer, but I think she's tough enough to stick around longer than that.  She's turning 14 in October...

  There's a few people I didn't get to see during my trip, which is unfortunate, so nods go out to MithrilEdge, Blackward, 'Mark James' (get better soon!), Valcarde and NekoBirdy.  I didn't have time to stop and visit the gaming stores where I used to work, so props to all the employees and gamers there, sorry I couldn't make it.

  It's back to work on Monday for me.  I finished my illustrations for the contract with the City of Greater Sudbury, and the coloring book is getting printed in August, so I'm back down to two jobs.  My graphic design contract at the college keeps getting extended as they keep finding more work for me, which is really cool.

  Aegeis and I took some time to work on THE PROJECT while I was there.  I might post some sketches at some point in the future.

One of my friends told me he joined DA, but he forgot to tell me his username, so I can't link him.

It rained on an off all weekend, it was nice and relaxing.  Well, if I could relax anyways.  My original graphic designer contract got extended till the end of June, the deadline for my coloring book illustrations is coming up soon, and I might land another graphic design contract in July.  Plus my part-time job on the side.  However, I'm taking a break and visiting family and friends in Ottawa on Canada day, no matter what.  I need a short vacation before I collapse at my desk.

In between all the drawing, sleeping and eating, I'm playing World of Warcraft.  I made it to level 40 with my main character last week and got my cute little paladin mount.  Most of the active players in our guild are levels 30-50 right now, so we're starting to tackle the tougher instances, and we're having a blast.  (If you play on the Uldum server, you're level 20+, and you're looking for a fun guild, send a whisper to Chaena!)

A few years ago, and me were working on a Slayers fanfiction/fanart project together.  It unfortunately fell off our radar after a while because I got lazy and Aegeis got busy.  Turns out we were both still thinking about it seperately.  I wanted to turn it into an original comic, and she wanted to turn it into original fiction.  So we're going to join forces again, redesign the storyline and characters, and eventually release either a manga or illustrated stories.  I'll probably be posting character sketches and stuff here once in a while, so look forward to it!

So summer has come around and I'm staying in Sudbury for all of it.  I've got two jobs and a contract at the moment, so I'm pretty busy.

I had to move to the first floor of the residence because of security reasons, so last weekend I packed up everything I own and moved it in one day.  All of my bruises are gone already except for a huge one on my stomach, twice the size of my thumb.  It doesn't hurt and I can't remember what I hit, but it's huuge and a vivid fushia/purple.  Darn you anemia, darn you.

I'm planning to go down to Ottawa in august to visit my family and friends before my second year of college starts.  I aced my first semester with a 3.74 GPA, and I'm still waiting for my grades for the second.  I think I did even better for that one.

Only two people have dropped out of the program so far, and banning anything unexpected over the summer, all 11 remaining students (including me) are coming back.  Next year we start stop-motion animation and 3-D modeling, as well as character design, storyboarding and backgrounds.  I'm really looking forward to everything.

This [link] is possibly the funniest commercial for a Final Fantasy product I've ever seen! XD

And this guy [link] has ALL the moves.

At last count I still have 12 projects to do in 2.5 weeks.  I'm pretty sure I'll have to stay up all night at least once to finish everything on time.  One of them is illustrations for a children's coloring book for the city of Greater Sudbury.  Volunteer work, but it gets my name out there.

Hmm. My DA subscription expired when I wasn't looking. Oh well.  I think I can stand the ads for a while.

I miss being able to have long conversations about silly nothing with someone face to face.  I guess that's the price to pay for moving to attend school. You meet plenty of new people but they don't understand where you're coming from. Thank god for World of Warcraft and TeamSpeak, it keeps me sane.

Shool is back on until May 5th.  I'm still swamped with projects @_@

Flash turned out to be a surprisingly easy program to use.  I might even post some stuff once I'm done with all my projects.

The Teacher strike is still on as far as we know. The official strike date is March 7th, so we'll know then.  At least we get part of our tuition refunded if it does happen, and I'll be allowed to stay in residence for the duration of it.

Reading week is still a week away for colleges, and it seems like so far away...  I've got five projects due next week on top of a contract deadline.  And I've got some comissions to finish (sorry Alexi, Yan, I haven't forgotten about you T.T).  Crazy busy.  Classes are going well as usual, and my drawing skills keep improving.  Flash is a lot of fun to use, I just wish I had the time to make my own animations instead of projects only...

I might be going home during reading week to visit my family, depending on how I have to get there.











Matt is still the nicest guy I've ever met

The teachers are debating going on strike in March... I really hope they don't, I don't feel like missing out on a month of school.

     Once upon a time (nine years ago) my friend Lionelle adopted a kitten from one of a litter born in her neighborhood.  She named it 'Minette', and for a while it was the happiest cat around.  It had a big shaggy dog playing mother to it, and plenty of small shiny things to play with.  Then it discovered that canaris were edible, and Lionelle's mother wasn't very happy about that.  She sent Minette to live in the countryside with my family.  Minette adored the country.  She had a big doggy mom here too, and a huge backyard full of birds and small critters that she could hunt.  And hunt she did. Almost everyday she would bring a dead bird, mouse, rat or larger rodent to the front porch to show off her skill.

     Years passed, and Minette was well, until she got into a fight with something too big for her.  She ran home, but not after sustaining a small scratch to the cheek.  The scratch started scabbing as small cuts do, so Minette would scratch at it, reopening the wound.  It would scab, she would scratch.  This cycle went on for a few days until my mother decided she had had enough and put a buster collar (those white lampshade things) on the cat.  Minette was perplexed as how to scratch herself, but not for long.  She figured out that if she twirled the collar around, the seam on it would rub against her cheek.  Unfortunately for Minette, she scratched so vigorously that not only did she get the scab off, but also a little bit of the surrounding skin.  The buster collar was promptly taken off and various unguents and products were tried to get Minette to stop scratching herself and making her wound worse.

     But the cat would not stop scratching. And everytime she scratched, the wound on her cheek became a little bit bigger.  By the time I came home for the holidays, a few weeks later, Minette had scratched the fur and skin off of half her face.  From her ear to a millimeter from her eye, right down to the beginning of her neck, all you could see was exposed muscle and tissue.  The family consulted the vet.  The only way that wound would heal was if the cat stopped scratching herself and we applied a special cream to her face three times a day.  then when it was healed, she would have to undergo a costly skin graft.  We knew that the cat wouldn't fall for the cream thing more than once.  It was impossible to watch her 24/7 to make sure she didn't scratch, and an operation would only add more complications.  So the decision was reached to put Minette to sleep.  May she have plenty of catnip and canaries to play with in kitty heaven.
Minette is survived by her doggy mom Bob(13), her annoying chihuahua brother Chiclet(5), and her german shepherd baby sister Barbie(1.5).

Luckily, that was the only sad thing to happen to us during the holidays.  I got to see all of my family(minus my real dad), and spent a week baking and cooking holiday food with my mom.

My computer is fully functional again.  I even upgraded my hard drive to 250 GB with the help of my little brother. He also found me a copy of Adobe Photoshop CS2, which I am definitely going to have fun with.  As soon as I get back to Sudbury next week I'll be able to install the rest of my software and games.  Hopefully my school schedule this semester will leave me enough time to get a part-time job.

Happy Holidays everyone!

(PS: if anyone in France can tell me where I can get my hands on the TV series "Valérian et Laureline" I'd be ever so grateful.  It was always one of my favorite sci-fi comics.)

I went to the movies today and made it a double feature. Aon Flux was great.  I really liked the story twists that kep happening, although I don't think Charlize Theron look good with black hair.  The woman is gorgeous, but that look just isn't for her.  After that, because I'm a sucker for Jane Auten's writing (I own every single one of her books), I went to see Pride and Prejudice.  They did a great job cramming the story into two hours.  Matthew MacFadyen had nothing on Colin Firth though, who originally played Mr. Darcy in that 8-hour BBC mini-series. He was quite handsome, but Colin Firth has more on-screen presence and charisma.

That rant made me want to go watch "Bride and Prejudice" again.  Good old Bollywood.

People need to stop giving Ue Boll money to make movies.  He's got two in the works that I know of: Bloodrayne and Dungeon Siege.  I'm seeing a pattern of bad video game movies here. IMDB tells me he's announced three other future projects as well, at least two of which are ALSO video game movie adaptations.
Uwe Boll, I fucking hate you.  May flaming crotch monkeys devour your tiny little brain.


Movies I actually want to go see in the future include:
Chronicles of Narnia (I own the books and love them)
Just Friends (I like the actors in it)
V for Vendetta (I want this to be out already...)
The Producers
Memoirs of a Geisha
Underworld: Evolution
Nightwatch
Tristan and Isolde
Ice Age 2
X3
Superman Returns

*Edit* I made the mistake of reading the Wikipedia entry on Uwe Boll, and now I'm even more disgusted at the guy. [link]

Just two more weeks and then I can see everyone again...

I'm very close to being done all my homework for the year.  I've got to write a short speech and present it, hand in my 8 art assignments tomorrow and finish two more photoshop projects.  And then I will sleep.  Blissful, blissful sleep.

They were already out of candy cane ice cream at the grocers, I had to settle on egg-nog flavored ice cream instead.  I hope it'll taste good.


Also: Wolfgangina is the strangest name ever, but it's still better than Gamma.  But Gamma is hawt so we forgive him.  And C. Smith is just amazing.  He is almost the Xellos of Zombie Powder. Almost.  Sorry if that didn't make much sense, I blame my lack of sleep.

Bleah, homework is taking a lot out of me.  I had three animations projects due this morning. I finished them all on time and got an awesome grade, but my weekend suffered greatly from lack of free time.

Tomorrow me and the rest of my class are painting the windows in the school cafeteria for the holidays.  It's going to be nice to paint something big again.  Animation tables are great, but my mind needs a distraction for a little bit.  I've improved my drawing a lot since school started.  I'll be a pro in no time!

I really can't wait till the holidays.  It's going to be nice seeing my family and friends again.  I might even have time to draw non-school things.  And poke my brother. Lots.  And my two stalkers will be nowhere to be seen, yay!

I had quite the weekend. Maybe I'll make a small comic  about it later.

Gen's Halloween 2005 Trick-or-Treating l00t tally:

- 2 mini bags of Doritos
- 1 bag of regular chips
- 1 Fruit by the Foot (Rainbow Punch Flavor!)
- 1 teensy-tiny bag of Gummi bears (contents: 4 gummies)
- 1 teensy-tiny box of smarties (contents: 5 smarties)
- 2 tiny Crunchie bars
- 1 tiny Aero bar
- 1 tiny Oh Henry bar
- 1 tiny Caramilk bar (just two squares?)
- 11 mystery green candies
- 1 gummi turtle
- a handful of Ringolos

Frank(the Tank)'s l00t tally:

- 2x Gen's l00t plus the following;
- 1 giant bag o'Skittles
- 1 pack of bacon
- 1 giant bottle of Whiskey

Turns out the pack of bacon had gone bad. Frank shared the Whiskey. Huzzah!  This was still my best Halloween take in five years.  Tomorrow is cheap leftover candy day at the supermarket anyways.

Happy Halloween everyone!

So my computer is still pretty messed up.  I have a hardware problem but no one  can figure out which piece is causing the constant crashes and error messages.  So I'll be begging Santa for a new computer come Christmas time.

I changed rooms in residence last Friday. I packed up and moved all my stuff in
three hours, which is a new record for me.  One of the party-girls moved out
last week and my roomate decided she wanted to have her best friend living with
her.  Because I'm such a pushover I complied.  Turns out I got the better deal.  
The second floor of rez is the quiet floor, whereas the third floor where I was
originally is where all the drunks and party animals are.  (I swear Frank hasn't
sobered up in two months.)  So my new roommate is quiet like me and I'll manage to get even more done.

Another month till I get to go home for the holidays. I'm really missing
everyone, espescially since online chatting is practically impossible for me.

Now that mid-terms are over homework is piling up again.  If you can call having
to do dozens of drawings and frames of animation 'homework'. I love my course!

My computer crapped out on me last week.  I had to replace the RAM completely and format my second hard drive to reistall Windows.  Now I can't get my speakers and my internet to work.

I didn't lose any data on my hard drive, but it still irks me that my ram died choking on a bad driver file.  So the moral here is don't try to help your roommate install a webcam by demonstrating it on your computer. Moral #2 is don't buy computer accessories from Wal-Mart. Ever.

Frank (who is the man) is going to help me get my internet working later tonight.  Then we'll play some Diablo 2 on the residence LAN. XD

One of the girls in residence, Sophia, asked me to accompany her to the tattoo parlor for her first tattoo experience.  Of course, if I'm going, I want a tattoo as well.  I still want a tattoo of wings, but I can't make up my mind. I don't know if I want my wings big, small, spread-out, closed, bony, bat-like, stylized, realistic, tribal, black, purple, red or white. Gah.

I'll post some different ideas, and you guys comment. I get final say of course,  but getting constructive criticism is always good.  Here's some quick roughs I came up with:



#1 is small (maybe two inches wide per wing), stylized, solid and kinda cute.  A variation would be to get the outline and add some detailing on the inside.

#2 is the biggest. It has a more organic, realistic feel to it imho.

#3 is in the middle.  It has swirlies. I like swirlies.  If I clean this one up it would look pretty damn nice and gothy.

Some other styles I'm considering.  (I'd probaly ask permission from the artist to modify/adapt/butcher their work to suit me better if I were to go for one of these.):


teh swirlies again. But drawn better.

:thumb7138464:
(minus the spine) looks really realistic and would probably partly drape over my shoulder.


these have a nice breezy feel.


(Minus the spine) very tribal and pointy.


the girliest, swirliest evar.  These would look awesome in white ink.

:thumb11062942:
more tribal, but this one has a neat native feel to it at the top that I like.


This will cost me a bundle, but that's what birthday money and leftover vacation pay is for.

I made it to Sudbury in one piece.  The residence isn't quite finished yet, but the rooms are and the internet is hooked up. The view from my room is pretty relaxing, I have a prime view of the forest behind the college from the third floor.

We went for a tour of the town this morning, and I really like it here in Sudbury.  The terrain is all pretty rocks and trees, which is a nice change from the city.

There's a comic book store here, but it looks so tiny.  I'll have to go check it out and see if they have anything interesting.

My school schedule looks pretty good, I'll have some free time to spend online and to work and pay back my loans.  So far so good

It finally hit me that I'm moving away from a city I've lived in for five years.

Today was my last day of work. I got to the store, and on the counter was a note from the boss thanking me for the great job I've done over the years, and I got all misty-eyed.

And then some of my favorite regulars came in and hung out with me a bit and said goodbye, and I was all misty-eyed again.

Tom, all gruff and tough, came in to take over.  Thank god he kept up the 'strong silent guy' routine.

I've got so many memories in Ottawa, good and bad, and so many friends and acquaintances there that are going to be sorely missed.

Tom, you're in charge now, make me proud.

Mike, John, Ali, Rita, Dave, Adam, Matt, Kathy, Andrea, Val and everyone else,  thanks for always making the atmosphere of the store a pleasant one.

Corey and Adam, thank you for teaching me how to play D&D and guiding us through countless adventures, I hope we can figure out how do it online.

Eric, Dev, Craig & Ken, thank you for being there whenever I needed someone to hang out with.

Nikki, I know we've rarely seen eye to eye an anything, but I think I'm a better person for having met you.  I mean that in the best possible way.

Julie, Arseni, I'm going to miss you guys most of all.

Shit, now I really am crying. Stupid emotions.

--Gen

It's official, I have given my two week's notice at the comic store.  Tom will be taking over all my hours.  I've made suggestions as to who should be interviewed to be the new part-time help, but the decision is ultimately out of my hands.  But if you've asked me for a job recently, then I've probably mentionned your name as a potential replacement.

Today was all crazy at the store.  There were some e-mail difficulties, the comic shipment was on time (this never happens), and the store was full of customers all day long, clamoring for one of the three new card games released this week or for their new comics.

I'm exhausted. I'm going straight home, having a mug of chai tea, curling up in my favorite chair, re-reading Hot Gimmick, and then going to sleep.

Apparently Christopher Walken is running for President of the USA.  I have no idea if this site is a joke or not, and I don't care, it's just too funny: [link]